Fscking lazy luser *$%#s
D J Ford
Okay - I get sick of the normal fools and idiots that I have to
support in order to feed my antique pen and DVD habit - but in all
honesty most of them are generally okay, and generally know better to
ask me really stupid questions. Today something really pissed me off.
I got emailed a demand (not a request, mind you - a veritable
*demand*, cc'ed to the boss-of-bosses) from a luser to come and install
their printer.
Which I had already done when luser got their computer months ago.
After some investigation via email, it turns turns that the user didn't
bother to go get the power extension cable I told them they'd need if they
insisted on placing the computer in the opposite corner of the room to
that where the network and power sockets are. [1]
Anyway - I tell them (again) who they should get an extension cable from
to power up their printer - only to then find that they (the holder of
the extension cables - a chap who is a BOFH of lathes, rather than
computers) is now pissed with me because they've now been subjected to
a rant from the luser for not giving her an extension cable at
Christmas (presumably, we're both psychic).
And then, *then*, I get another email from this insolent prat demanding
that I drop everything to attend to them to plug it in. To a fscking wall
socket.
Either they're a) chronically lazy, b) chronically stupid or, I suspect,
c) are of the opinion that plugging things into power sockets is beneath
them. But not beneath me.
It's the later that really pisses me off. Okay - they might have a degree
and a PhD that I don't - and they sure as hell earn more than I do - but
the implication that their *time* is worth so much more than mine that
they can't plug a bloody power plug in really fscks me off. I've got
600 of them to support - I don't have time for this *crap*.
Jeez - the bottom line is that I do this job because I get a buzz when I
make IT work - that just don't happen when I'm reduced to this sort of
menial garbage.[2]
But I *still* go and do it, because I know that it's going to be easier
than arguing, and anyway, there's no-one else who will. But god help her
if she ever wants a serious problem fixed.
Still - at least I came back home to some pleasing results from my last
Open University paper. That was buzz enough for the day, I guess.
Dave
[1] Heck, I didn't even complain when I had to order a specially long
network cable when I first put the machine in, even after being informed
that the sockets were all in the 'wrong place'. In hindsight, I really
wished I'd told her just where she could have put her computer instead.
I must have been unwell at the time.
[2] Well, unless my hands are wet, I suppose.
Geoff Lane
> I got emailed a demand (not a request, mind you - a veritable
> *demand*, cc'ed to the boss-of-bosses) from a luser to come and install
> their printer.
> Which I had already done when luser got their computer months ago.
Dare I suggest that the luser has demonstrated that they have no use for the
printer and it be given to some more deserving person.
--
/\ Geoff. Lane. /\ Manchester Computing /\ Manchester /\ M13 9PL /\ England /\
Rik Steenwinkel
<rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> persuaded newsservers all over the world to
carry the following:
} I'm not so sure about that to be honest. Looking at your domain, I'd
} have assumed that Plugging In Of Electrical Equipment must be performed
} by Authorized Personnel.
Did you notice the third-level domain? Just the ticket for lusers who
annoy the Authorized Personnel.
--
// Rik Steenwinkel # VMS mercenary # Enschede, Netherlands
// 1024D/CDBAE5C1
D J Ford
> ^^^^^^^^^^
>Dare I suggest that the luser has demonstrated that they have no use for the
>printer and it be given to some more deserving person.
Nah - the printer's a pile of crap - that's the one silver lining to the
situation. Still, if she whinges about that too, then she's welcome to
come down and peruse my exciting selection of yellowing nine year old
HP500's.[1]
Dave
[1] All of which work *perfectly*[2] - except for the fact that they
look like someone has been blowing cigarette smoke over them for
the last five years and the paper pickup rollers don't anymore.
[2] Which is a lot more than I can say for some of the newer HP inkjets
arround here - the ones that stubbornly refuse to believe we've just put
a new ink cartridge. The only advice HP suggest is 'buy another new ink
cartridge'. Wankers.
D J Ford
>Did you notice the third-level domain? Just the ticket for lusers who
>annoy the Authorized Personnel.
Since the plugging of printers into a wall socket is the soft of highly
complex technical task that I shouldn't expect my lusers to understand
(after all, the only other alternatives is that the luser is lazy, or
an ignorant git - so it clearly must be a lack of knowledge) - it was
suggested that I should take a leaf out of HP's book, and take the
DV camera up to the lusers office, make a video showing, step-by-step,
how insert a plug into a wall socket, remove the plug again, burn the
video to a CD or DVD and send it to her in case she needs to refer to
the documentation again.
After all, I can hardly tell her to RTFM if she hasn't got one for
the power sockets in her office, can I?
Dave
Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13]
> In the referenced article, Geoff Lane <zza...@twirl.mcc.ac.uk> writes:
>> ^^^^^^^^^^
>>Dare I suggest that the luser has demonstrated that they have no use for the
>>printer and it be given to some more deserving person.
>
> Nah - the printer's a pile of crap - that's the one silver lining to the
> situation. Still, if she whinges about that too, then she's welcome to
> come down and peruse my exciting selection of yellowing nine year old
> HP500's.[1]
I can't believe you invited a luser to abuse hardware in your immediate
vicinity. <slap> Snap out of it man! </slap>
>
> Dave
> [1] All of which work *perfectly*[2] - except for the fact that they
> look like someone has been blowing cigarette smoke over them for
> the last five years and the paper pickup rollers don't anymore.
If this is UI - then... ah - crap forget about it. Mail me if you want
a trick that might work.
>
> [2] Which is a lot more than I can say for some of the newer HP inkjets
> arround here - the ones that stubbornly refuse to believe we've just put
> a new ink cartridge. The only advice HP suggest is 'buy another new ink
> cartridge'. Wankers.
Oh really. How... helpfull of them. But then again, we know they suck
so there's hardly anything surprising here.
Ino!~
--
I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire
off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark
near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time,
like tears in rain. Time to die.
D J Ford
>I can't believe you invited a luser to abuse hardware in your immediate
>vicinity. <slap> Snap out of it man! </slap>
She can come look and my selection of old printers. Whether she actually
gets one is a different matter...
>> the last five years and the paper pickup rollers don't anymore.
>
>If this is UI - then... ah - crap forget about it. Mail me if you want
>a trick that might work.
Frankly, I can't be bothered (erm, that's fixing them, not emailing
you) now I can get a nice new Samsung A4 laser printer for 59GBP - I'm
sure that there's *something* wrong with them (well, other than that
the included toner cartridge contains about four grains of toner),
but I'm just not sure what yet.
>> a new ink cartridge. The only advice HP suggest is 'buy another new ink
>> cartridge'. Wankers.
>
>Oh really. How... helpfull of them. But then again, we know they suck
>so there's hardly anything surprising here.
There cheap printers suck - and suck big time. But I like their big
stuff. We've got a couple of A0 Designjet plotters kicking about, and,
considering the punishment they get, their resilience impresses me no end.
But HP's cheap stuff never even works in the first place, let alone
lasts to the second.
Of course, I wouldn't have to buy cheap-crap printers if it weren't
for that particular class of luser who just *has* to have a printer on
his desk because getting out of their chair to work ten yards down a
hallway is too much of an inconvenience.
Dave
D J Ford
>Don't laugh.
I'm not. I can't count the number of times I have to put up with
five minutes of annoying bleeping, then leave the office to find the
printer has run out of paper, and there are half-a-dozen students
milling about, going "What's happened?".
"It's run out of paper"
"So what do we do?"
Oh, for fsck's sake...
Still - at least no one's tried putting a transparency through my
big-ass new A3 colour laser yet. I'm in two minds as to whether to
put a UI poster up on the wall informing the morons what will happen
(to my printer, and to them) if they try, or if doing that will just
tempt fate.
>(b) discharged a (CO2) fire extinguisher at a piece of smoking
>equipment because no one else thought to
Hmm. I did once manage to make a PC catch fire - and I'm still not
quite sure why it did. The cable *looked* like an ATA cable... -
fortunately the fire went out when I turned the power off so no CO2
necessary. It was in a library though - which probably scores extra
points.
>That last was particularly worrying - there were at least a dozen people
>milling around the locked emergency exit by the time I got there and not
>one had the sense to get at the key, which was not unobviously situated.
The fire escape at the halls of residence at my university lead out
onto a locked patio on the roof of the adjacent building. That was
particularly appalling - especially since the building houses the uni's
chemistry department. And also since the fire alarms regularly went
(well, were maliciously set) off in the winter.
Dave
AndyC the WB
Richard> In article <HCrruA....@bath.ac.uk>,
Richard> abs...@bath.ac.uk (D J Ford)
Richard> wrote:
Richard> If you can't figure that out on your own, you deserve to
Richard> burn (Darwin, q.v.).
I said something similar after an evacuation test here. For those
outside the uk, it's a legal requirement that offices perform an
evacuation test by activating the fire alarm sirens without prior
warning and time how long it takes to empty the building. I spent the
entire time vocally pointing out that anyone to stupid to figure it
out deserves to die.
Richard> Then again, at times in my life *when I was not first on
Richard> the scene* I have ....
While I've avoided those kinds of excitement, I have been half way
down an escalator on the London Underground when someone got their
shoelace caught at the bottom. There was a pile of at least 15
people, including two elderly ladies, by the time someone reacted to
my shouting to hit the stop button. Actually, in a way it was like
some kind of luser skittles...
--
AndyC the WB
Replace SPAM with Andy to reply
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
at 11:23 PM, abs...@bath.ac.uk (D J Ford) said:
>I got emailed a demand (not a request, mind you - a veritable
>*demand*, cc'ed to the boss-of-bosses) from a luser to come and
>install their printer.
>Which I had already done when luser got their computer months ago.
You let her live? Why didn't you talk to your capo di tuti capi about
this cretin? If you're implying that they would have backed her up,
then, although IANAC, you will extend your lifespan if you seek
employment elsewhere. If the CdTC will back you up, then tell her
where to install the extension cord, in graphic detail.
>And then, *then*, I get another email from this insolent prat
>demanding that I drop everything to attend to them to plug it in.
>To a fscking wall socket.
Doesn't that require that she read manual -real fast?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+bspfh to contact me.
Back in the old days, before FIDO, when men were men and
sheep were scared, there were some real flames
David P. Murphy
> I'm not. I can't count the number of times I have to put up with
> five minutes of annoying bleeping, then leave the office to find the
> printer has run out of paper, and there are half-a-dozen students
> milling about, going "What's happened?".
> "It's run out of paper"
> "So what do we do?"
> Oh, for fsck's sake...
There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
You can't argue with excellent advice like that.
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:Murphy...@emc.com (work)
Patrick R. Wade
>
>Okay - I get sick of the normal fools and idiots that I have to
>support in order to feed my antique pen and DVD habit -
Where do you get the antique DVDs? Are they made of shellac?
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
Garrett Wollman
Richard P. Grant <r...@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>(b) discharged a (CO2) fire extinguisher at a piece of smoking
>equipment because no one else thought to
``Institute policy is not to fight fires.''
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | [G]enes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of
wol...@lcs.mit.edu | chemical processes. Genes do not make ``novelty-
Opinions not those of| seeking'' or any other complex and overt behavior.
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
Michael Jurney
>
> Hmm. I did once manage to make a PC catch fire - and I'm still not
> quite sure why it did. The cable *looked* like an ATA cable... -
> fortunately the fire went out when I turned the power off so no CO2
> necessary. It was in a library though - which probably scores extra
> points.
Just yesterday I had a brand new piece of testing hardware spontaneously
switch modes from "container of many CPUs" to "fantastically expensive
smoke machine". The service tech. today told me "Yes, sometimes they
do that. We're not sure why." I was, at the same time, both amused and
not amused _at all_.
--
Michael D. Jurney
mi...@jurney.org
Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13]
> In the referenced article, ino...@nqzvaonfr.arg writes:
>>I can't believe you invited a luser to abuse hardware in your immediate
>>vicinity. <slap> Snap out of it man! </slap>
>
> She can come look and my selection of old printers. Whether she actually
> gets one is a different matter...
This sounds like a variation of the "you can come and look at my stamp
collection".
>>> a new ink cartridge. The only advice HP suggest is 'buy another new ink
>>> cartridge'. Wankers.
>>
>>Oh really. How... helpfull of them. But then again, we know they suck
>>so there's hardly anything surprising here.
>
> There cheap printers suck - and suck big time. But I like their big
> stuff. We've got a couple of A0 Designjet plotters kicking about, and,
> considering the punishment they get, their resilience impresses me no end.
You realise that the Universe will find a way to make you go back and
eat your own words now, don't you?
>
> But HP's cheap stuff never even works in the first place, let alone
> lasts to the second.
"Optimized for failure" springs to mind for some reason.
> Of course, I wouldn't have to buy cheap-crap printers if it weren't
> for that particular class of luser who just *has* to have a printer on
> his desk because getting out of their chair to work ten yards down a
> hallway is too much of an inconvenience.
I think that the problem is with the moronic manglement accepting[1]
such requests and bending over in front of any idiot that throws a
hissy fit. My take to it would be "*you* print to the network printer
over there, you *you* don't print at all".
Ino!~
[1] Yeah, we all know that, but it's worth re-stating it.
Stuart Lamble
> Word has it that on Thu, 03 Apr 2003 13:49:01 GMT, in this august forum,
> "Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13] " <ino...@nqzvaonfr.arg> said:
[HP inkjets]
>>Oh really. How... helpfull of them. But then again, we know they suck
>>so there's hardly anything surprising here.
>
Oh, they do. They do. Your budget, that is, not ink.
I flat out refuse to buy _any_ inkjet printer. Or anything made by
{HP,Epson,Lexmark}, for that matter. The last thing I bought from HP was
a calculator, back in '95... and said calculator is _still_ pretty much
the top of the HP calculator range. Fscking morons. (Since I stopped
doing engineering, I don't really have much of a use for it... so it's
mostly used by my father[1] now.)
Canon, OTOH, seems to be doing the Right Thing, for the most part. (Or
rather, I haven't been burnt by them yet.)
ObInterestingTidbit: Google for "hp calculator" (no quotes). Note which
site is _not_ at the top of the list.
[1] Teaches physics, at secondary school level. Used to be a
university[2] lecturer in physics. This has led to a number of
interesting situations, where those who have learnt from him have
said to myself or my sister, "I _know_ you from somewhere." Of
course, neither myself nor my sister have ever met these
individuals...
[2] Swinburne Uni, after it was renamed from "Swinburne Institute of
Technology" (Dad lectured there long before the name change, btw).
--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".
Bron Gondwana
Stuart Lamble <7d3-...@carousel.its.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> In article <q3kp8voqdhcn3oeun...@4ax.com>, Lionel wrote:
> > Word has it that on Thu, 03 Apr 2003 13:49:01 GMT, in this august forum,
> > "Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13] " <ino...@nqzvaonfr.arg> said:
> [HP inkjets]
> >>Oh really. How... helpfull of them. But then again, we know they suck
> >>so there's hardly anything surprising here.
> >
> > The annoying thing is that inkjets are supposed to /blow/.
>
> Oh, they do. They do. Your budget, that is, not ink.
>
> I flat out refuse to buy _any_ inkjet printer. Or anything made by
> {HP,Epson,Lexmark}, for that matter. The last thing I bought from HP was
> a calculator, back in '95... and said calculator is _still_ pretty much
> the top of the HP calculator range. Fscking morons. (Since I stopped
> doing engineering, I don't really have much of a use for it... so it's
> mostly used by my father[1] now.)
>
> Canon, OTOH, seems to be doing the Right Thing, for the most part. (Or
> rather, I haven't been burnt by them yet.)
I'm quite happy with my Canon S750 photo printer (will be happier when
foomatic gets a driver for same, though the BJ 8200 driver seems to work
fine)
Bron.
G. Paul Ziemba
>That last was particularly worrying - there were at least a dozen people
>milling around the locked emergency exit by the time I got there and not
>one had the sense to get at the key, which was not unobviously situated.
Ooh, burning building luser DSW.
Key, nothing. I was staying in the Copley Plaza Hotel ca. 1983 when
the fire alarms went off around 3 in the morning.
Door cool to the touch...open door...smell of smoke in the hallway.
Went promptly down the stairs (with numerous other groggy guests)
The stairs ended at the lobby, so a very short walk was required to
actually leave the building. I had to make my way through a crowd of
_at least_ 100 people milling about the lobby who were wondering "what's
going on?"
--
G. Paul Ziemba paul+us...@w6yx.stanford.edu
FreeBSD unix:
9:51PM up 20 days, 23:39, 12 users, load averages: 0.16, 0.07, 0.02
Greg Andrews
>
>There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
>To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
>besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
>a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
>
> DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
>
And handwritten underneath is the retort "Worchestershire or BP
size is much better!"
-Greg
--
::::::::::::::: Greg Andrews :::::: ge...@panix.com :::::::::::::::
A large number of installed systems work by fiat.
That is, they work by being declared to work.
-- Anatol Holt
Satya
<7d3-...@carousel.its.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> {HP,Epson,Lexmark}, for that matter. The last thing I bought from HP was
> a calculator, back in '95... and said calculator is _still_ pretty much
> the top of the HP calculator range. Fscking morons. (Since I stopped
Hmm... I have a calculator... Ah, it's a c*sio 9700 or something. never
mind, but my story hinges on that unused-engineering-calculator aspect.
My dad bought this one for me, I lused it for a while, and then it sat
in a cupboard gathering dust and leaking battery fluid. On the last trip
home, I rescued it. And it's sitting in my suitacse ever since. With the
manual, no less!
Hmmm.... anyone want a lused calculator? (Note: this is a _half-hearted_
attempt at selling it.) It still works, I think.
> interesting situations, where those who have learnt from him have
> said to myself or my sister, "I _know_ you from somewhere." Of
> course, neither myself nor my sister have ever met these
> individuals...
On the phone, then?
Strange things happen to my brain between midnight and dawn.
--
Satya.
D J Ford
>In article <HCqoys....@bath.ac.uk>, D J Ford wrote:
>>
>>Okay - I get sick of the normal fools and idiots that I have to
>>support in order to feed my antique pen and DVD habit -
>
>Where do you get the antique DVDs? Are they made of shellac?
*grin* - I was forced, by a particularly bad previous PHB, to send a
fully working BBC Domesday computer to the landfill. Bloody disgrace that
was. If I'd had had any room at all at home, I'd have kept it myself.
Does that counts as an antique DVD? :-)
Dave
Steven Hill
> >
>
So you can use one to help you get out, if there are fire issues at exits.
Or if a person catches fire.
Or to spray lusers.
--
Steven Hill
This is not the signature you are looking for
D J Ford
>> There cheap printers suck - and suck big time. But I like their big
>> stuff. We've got a couple of A0 Designjet plotters kicking about, and,
>> considering the punishment they get, their resilience impresses me no end.
>
>You realise that the Universe will find a way to make you go back and
>eat your own words now, don't you?
Don't care - we have expensive same-day warranties on the plotters.
Just about the *only* thing we do have service agreements on. When
I arrived here I was fairly horrified to find that all the PC's
we had - even the ones that ran 24/7 in the computer labs[1] -
were built by a bloke called 'Geoff'. We didn't even have his
address, just a mobile phone number. Everything I've brought since
then has had a five year onsite warranty.
>I think that the problem is with the moronic manglement accepting[1]
>such requests and bending over in front of any idiot that throws a
>hissy fit.
Ain't that the truth.
Dave
[1] These would be the computers in the labs adjacent to a
building site. With no air-con. And nothing on the (cheap)
motherboards to tell the (cheap) PC to shut down when the
(cheap) fan gets clogged up with, ooh say, cement dust, stops
working and slowly lets the CPU fry.[2]
[2] Actually, that's the one good thing about these cheap
computers we've got. The natural wastage rate of the is
pleasingly high.
Al. Andreou
> ObInterestingTidbit: Google for "hp calculator" (no quotes). Note which
> site is _not_ at the top of the list.
My (educated) guess would be www.hp.com/calculators/, that obsolete, information-lacking
'official' HP calculator site.
The HP calculator history is a perfect example of luser manglement; vitriolic rants from
more passionate (correction: even more) users of (RPN) HP calculators can be found in
news:comp.sys.hp48.
There are reports of HP manglers going back in their right mind and of a new line of RPN
calculators, but there also are reports of the bigfoot and of bug-free Microsoft code.
ObMoreInterestingTidbit: I'd expect www.hpcalc.org to be on the top of the list, instead
of www.hpmuseum.org...
(I myself am the happy owner of a 49G and a 40G, the latter of which sits in a drawer
collecting dust; the former, however, is in nearly-daily use -- it's a fun toy.)
--
Alexandros Andreou, ee4299 at ee.teiath.gr.
Resistance? Hell, you are *already* assimilated!
TimC
> [1] Teaches physics, at secondary school level. Used to be a
> university[2] lecturer in physics. This has led to a number of
> interesting situations, where those who have learnt from him have
> said to myself or my sister, "I _know_ you from somewhere." Of
> course, neither myself nor my sister have ever met these
> individuals...
> [2] Swinburne Uni, after it was renamed from "Swinburne Institute of
> Technology" (Dad lectured there long before the name change, btw).
Hmmm, interesting - physics at swin? Do we even have a physics course
anymore?
Pity I am only a newbie at Swinburne.
--
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
Octopuses don't like astro turf much. That's a *great* piece of trivia
to drop into conversations. I must remember it.
-- Lloyd Gilbert in AFAFDA
Robin Munn
> d...@myths.com (David P. Murphy) wrote:
>
>>There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
>>To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
>>besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
>>a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
>>
>> DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
>
I was considering letting that sit on its own, uncommented, mute witness
to someone Really Not Getting It. But then I thought, "What's the use of
public humiliation if the offender doesn't get publically humiliated?"
You, sir, have transgressed against good taste on three counts:
1. Posting a one-line followup that looked like an AOL chatroom
message, IN ALL CAPS, no less.
2. Posting a one-line followup that looked like it came from the
only person in my ASR killfile (that idiot with the word
"knockers" in his made-up domain name).
3. Ruining the joke by attempting to explain it. We all know the
sign should have said A4. That was the *point*.
I shall, however, be lenient. You are sentenced to no more than thirty
days' time working AOL helpdesk.
Court adjourned.
--
Robin Munn <rm...@pobox.com>
http://www.rmunn.com/
PGP key ID: 0x6AFB6838 50FF 2478 CFFB 081A 8338 54F7 845D ACFD 6AFB 6838
TimC
> Rob Adams <roba...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>> d...@myths.com (David P. Murphy) wrote:
>>
>>>There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
>>>To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
>>>besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
>>>a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
>>>
>>> DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
>>
>> ITYM A4, HTH HAND
>
> sign should have said A4. That was the *point*.
I thought it was just there for the hoards of really stupid people who
would think it would be a good idea to put something 4 times bigger
than acceptable into the paper-feeder.
--
TimC -- http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/
'It's amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity and incumbency.'
-- Gerorge W. Bush. June 14, 2001, to Swedish PM Goran Perrson,
unaware that a live television camera was still rolling.
Robin Munn
> Robin Munn (aka Bruce) was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
>> Rob Adams <roba...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>>> d...@myths.com (David P. Murphy) wrote:
>>>
>>>>There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
>>>>To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
>>>>besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
>>>>a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
>>>>
>>>> DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
>>>
>>> ITYM A4, HTH HAND
>>
>> 3. Ruining the joke by attempting to explain it. We all know the
>> sign should have said A4. That was the *point*.
>
> I thought it was just there for the hoards of really stupid people who
> would think it would be a good idea to put something 4 times bigger
> than acceptable into the paper-feeder.
Nah. While there may well be some people clueless enough to try to stuff
A1 paper into an 8.5"-wide slot, they are (fortunately) few and far
between. OTOH, *lots* of people would mistake A4 paper for 8.5" x 11" --
I would have trouble telling them apart unless I had both sizes in front
of me, for instance.
Besides, I can't conceive of A1 paper being in common use in many
places. Maybe a graphic design shop. In most places, you'd need a sign
warning against A4, not A1.
Bruce Tomlin
Stuart Lamble <7d3-...@carousel.its.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> Canon, OTOH, seems to be doing the Right Thing, for the most part. (Or
> rather, I haven't been burnt by them yet.)
Last year, my mom insisted on a particular $300 (US) model of Canon
because it was shiny. I told her to get a cheaper one because they all
suck anyhow, and it would be easier to justify replacing the printer if
it sucked badly enough. Now the printer insists on randomly printing
pages with extra magenta.
It's probably fixable by replacing the entire printhead assembly, but by
now you'd probably have to special order the damn thing because it's
last year's design. Either way, I have a shortage of round tuits
lately, and she's had more important things for me to fix. (Mounting a
20" Sharp color LCD TV on the kitchen wall was much more fun.)
Jasper Janssen
>Besides, I can't conceive of A1 paper being in common use in many
>places. Maybe a graphic design shop. In most places, you'd need a sign
>warning against A4, not A1.
Even the places that use Really Big Paper (like my dad's shop, for
maps/drawings of which find came from where), tend to use A0 rather than
A1. A1 is far too large to be of any use in the field whatsoever anyway,
and then you might as well go the whole hog, appears to be the reasoning.
Jasper
Mike Andrews
> Robin Munn (aka Bruce) was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> > Rob Adams <roba...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> >> d...@myths.com (David P. Murphy) wrote:
> >>
> >>>There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
> >>>To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
> >>>besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
> >>>a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
> >>>
> >>> DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
> >>
> >> ITYM A4, HTH HAND
> >
> > 3. Ruining the joke by attempting to explain it. We all know the
> > sign should have said A4. That was the *point*.
> I thought it was just there for the hoards of really stupid people who
> would think it would be a good idea to put something 4 times bigger
> than acceptable into the paper-feeder.
<rant type="hot-button">
0 times bigger is the original size.
1 time bigger is twice the original size.
2 times bigger is three times the orginal size
...
N times bigger is (N+1) times the original size.
So 4 times bigger is 5 times the original size.
A1 paper is *not* 5 times the size of A4 paper, nor is
it 5 times the size of any other ISO-standard-sized
paper.
</rant>
--
Mike Andrews / Michael Fenwick Barony of Namron, Ansteorra
mi...@mikea.ath.cx
Tired old music Laurel since 1987
Stuart Lamble
s/have ever met/had ever met/
s/uals/uals before/
Pedant... (but then, what else would one expect in the monastery?)
> Strange things happen to my brain between midnight and dawn.
Indeed.
Stuart Lamble
TimC wrote:
> Hmmm, interesting - physics at swin? Do we even have a physics course
> anymore?
No idea. Dad took the package some years ago, at which point he started
teaching in the secondary system. I think he was at Swinburne for some
twenty plus years.
Towards the end, he was teaching avionics. Don't remember if that was as
well as, or instead of, the physics.
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)
[...]
> A1 paper is *not* 5 times the size of A4 paper, nor is
> it 5 times the size of any other ISO-standard-sized
> paper.
Given that A paper scale is a logorthmic one (to the base 2) no A
series paper is 5 times the size of any other A series paper.
>
></rant>
>
> --
> Mike Andrews / Michael Fenwick Barony of Namron, Ansteorra
> mi...@mikea.ath.cx
> Tired old music Laurel since 1987
--
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia. See
http://dformosa.zeta.org.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html to find out more.
Free the Memes.
Kevin
<rp...@yahoo.co.uk.invalid> wrote:
>> >(b) discharged a (CO2) fire extinguisher at a piece of smoking
>> >equipment because no one else thought to
>> ``Institute policy is not to fight fires.''
>in which case, why are there fire extinguishers every twenty yards?
>The policy here is to attack the fire if there is no risk to you, but
>run away if it's not out within $SMALLNUM seconds.
Many moons ago I worked in a fabric manufacturing facility which had ratty
old wooden buildings with plenty of old wiring and leaky roofs. In an effort
to reduce their property insurance a large number of employees went through
a training exercise (thinly disguised fire extinguisher sales pitch)
provided by a company that sold fire extinguishers. They were then
designated FETPs (Fire Extinguisher-Trained Personnel).
The company as many fire extinguishers placed in strategic locations as were
needed to satisfy the city fire department and the insurance company. We all
hoped they wouldn't endanger firefighters by "cooking off" as the building
burned, because we sure weren't going to stick around and use them in the
event of a fire.
Kevin
Garrett Wollman
>> ``Institute policy is not to fight fires.''
>in which case, why are there fire extinguishers every twenty yards?
You ask the city fire inspector....
Our safety people do, at least, insist on sprinklers, everywhere.[1]
If they ever go off in our new building, they will probably cause
enough mold spores to germinate in the plenum to make the building
ununhabitable. (But hey, whaddya want for a paltry $300 million?)
Well, at least my retirement is only 35 years away....
-GAWollman
[1] Yes, even in the data center. And no, they don't seem to belieive
in any sort of safety interlock between power and fire-suppression
systems. Pre-action system? ``Value-engineered'' out of the building
at an early stage (after all, if they safety office didn't insist on
it, it must not be necessary, right?).
Kevin
>There cheap printers suck - and suck big time. But I like their big
>stuff. We've got a couple of A0 Designjet plotters kicking about, and,
>considering the punishment they get, their resilience impresses me no end.
>But HP's cheap stuff never even works in the first place, let alone
>lasts to the second.
Everyone's mileage varies. I bought my 1st HP inkjet to replace a Star
dot-matrix and it ran like a charm for me for several years and then a few
more years for my brother when he got my whole old system as a Christmas
present for his family (2nd wife and her 2 boys, 8 and 10). That needed the
use of the roller refurbishing kit HP offered a couple of years after I
bought it.
My newer HP (722C) has been perking along without a bit of trouble. They do
eat ink cartridges at an insane rate - showing my 2 new nephews how to use
Paintbrush on my old system was evil. :)
I tried a Canon BJC 600 a couple of years ago and had nothing but trouble
with it. I had bought it for the individual color cartridge capability.
>Of course, I wouldn't have to buy cheap-crap printers if it weren't
>for that particular class of luser who just *has* to have a printer on
>his desk because getting out of their chair to work ten yards down a
>hallway is too much of an inconvenience.
I "acquired" a discard HP 680 inkjet at work for occasional color printing,
but do most of my printing off the network laser printer - a full 16-17 feet
away.
On my "lottery winnings" shopping list is a color laser printer. I wish they
would take the price nosedive that RAM, CD-ROMs, CPUs, and HDDs have already
taken and that flatscreen monitors are starting to take. I bought a 19"
conventional monitor last fall for $175.00 (US) and by the looks of things,
it might be the last conventional CRT I'll ever buy.
Kevin
Earl Grey
> $Work-1 built mainframes, and there were attested stories about the day a
> helldesker was overheard asking "What colour smoke, sir?", and then
> *everyone* heard the time another helldesker screamed "GET OUT!!!"
> because $LUSER was wanting to know the shutdown commands and didn't
> honestly have time to complete said procedure before the rising waters
> would engulf the bigass three-phase power supply.
[Speak Voice="Agatha" Movie="Minority Report"]
" RUUUUUUUUUN!
[/Speak]
Steve VanDevender
> (I myself am the happy owner of a 49G and a 40G, the latter of which sits in a drawer
> collecting dust; the former, however, is in nearly-daily use -- it's a fun toy.)
I have thought about getting a 49G, but compared to the older HP stuff
the hardware is utter crap (mushy rubber keys? After experiencing
injection-molded plastic keys with a carefully-engineered clicky feel, I
just wouldn't be able to stand that). I am sticking with my HP 48SX
until it dies, which may well be after I do. In case it goes first, I
may be adopting a friend's unwanted HP 48GX as a backup, although I
consider even the GX a bit of a downturn from the good old days.
I also have a very beat-up HP 41CV which would probably still work if I
put batteries back in it, and a near-mint HP 71B that I bought off a
former neighbor after surprising him by recognizing what it was. I wish
I had kept my old HP 11C. If eBay didn't scare me so much I'd troll it
for an HP 15C.
And sitting on the table over here is an HP 9100A which still works.
Not very portable, though.
--
Steve VanDevender "I ride the big iron" http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~stevev
ste...@hexadecimal.uoregon.edu PGP keyprint 4AD7AF61F0B9DE87 522902969C0A7EE8
Little things break, circuitry burns / Time flies while my little world turns
Every day comes, every day goes / 100 years and nobody shows -- Happy Rhodes
Al. Andreou
> I have thought about getting a 49G, but compared to the older HP stuff
> the hardware is utter crap (mushy rubber keys? After experiencing
> injection-molded plastic keys with a carefully-engineered clicky feel, I
> just wouldn't be able to stand that). I am sticking with my HP 48SX
Its guts are more or less the same as the GX's if you remove the
expansion ports and add more RAM to it.
The look (frozen rat's ass) and feel (rubber semi-sticky keys) of it
is entirely unlike to the one a friend's 48GX left in my mind. It has
some improvements in design (you can use the arrow keys while in Alpha
mode, for example) and in speed (faster symbolic math), but if you
just want a number cruncher stick with your SX.
> until it dies, which may well be after I do. In case it goes first, I
You didn't have any problems with the ENTER key, right? Like it being
a bit loose on the right side?
On other news, it's recovery through magnets today; I was given six
*really* strong magnets (well, the strongest *I* have seen) that were
used in some superconductivity experiments[1]. It is really fun being
about two feet from the screen or more, waving (with magnet in hand)
and watching the effects.
I really wonder what they will do to floppy disks and harddisks. I
must venture into luser territory[1] one day, with a magnet in each
pocket, and watch people's expressions as their screens go on acid
when I walk through. Repeatedly :-) .
HANWeekend
X
--
Alexandros Andreou, ee4299 at ee.teiath.gr.
# find / -iname life
Al. Andreou
or leaving references unreferenced?
My situation is deteriorating; must socialize less with lusers before
I become completely contaminated.
In article <slrnb8t9mf.lfe.p...@bourreau.cachot>,
Al. Andreou wrote:
> used in some superconductivity experiments[1]. It is really fun being
[1] research.ee.teiath.gr, but then again...
--
Al. Andreou, ee4299 at ee.teiath.gr
Slowly becoming a master a self-LARTing...
Peter Corlett
[...]
> I flat out refuse to buy _any_ inkjet printer. Or anything made by
Oh, I dunno. I quite like the BJ10e I bought back in 1992 that was still
going well into 2000 when I fancied a colour printer and foolishly bought a
HP Deskjet 610C, which has since joined it on the pile'o'crap in the corner
of the computer room (basically the "fix it or eBay it" pile). Guess which
one would still be going were I able to get another print cartridge?
I did in fact obtain another HP printer earlier this year. Thirty quid got
me an ex-university HP Laserjet 4M+ (of similar vintage to my BJ10) with a
full toner cartridge. It's practically brand new - it's barely done 123,000
pages.
I'm sure I'll still be using it in 2010...
Greg Andrews
>I'm replying to myself to ask what is worse: one replying to oneself
>or leaving references unreferenced?
>
>My situation is deteriorating; must socialize less with lusers before
>I become completely contaminated.
>
Just attach the referent without making a production of it.
-Greg
--
::::::::::::::: Greg Andrews :::::: ge...@panix.com :::::::::::::::
I've got a cartload of hungry hounds ordered for 17:29,
and a fox to staple to my ex-boss' arse.
-- Andy Davidson
Kai Henningsen
> In the referenced article, r...@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk writes:
> >Don't laugh.
>
> I'm not. I can't count the number of times I have to put up with
> five minutes of annoying bleeping, then leave the office to find the
> printer has run out of paper, and there are half-a-dozen students
> milling about, going "What's happened?".
>
> "It's run out of paper"
> "So what do we do?"
Well ... better than being told that only authorized personnel is allowed
to feed in new paper, I'd say. With the implication that you may be
working for uni IT, but that doesn't make you competent enough to feed in
new paper.
And no, the guy saying that is not going to do it for you, either.
Fortunately, that only happened once.
> Hmm. I did once manage to make a PC catch fire - and I'm still not
> quite sure why it did. The cable *looked* like an ATA cable... -
Maybe it had a break with a gap just narrow enough to spark?
> The fire escape at the halls of residence at my university lead out
> onto a locked patio on the roof of the adjacent building. That was
> particularly appalling - especially since the building houses the uni's
> chemistry department. And also since the fire alarms regularly went
> (well, were maliciously set) off in the winter.
As a friend of mine (who, I believe, studied something like biochem) once
put it:
When the fire alarm goes off in the chemistry building, run. Stop when at
the other side of the city.
I think that was the same guy who told me about the fire brigade who, in
spite of being told not to, used their water pipe on a lab fire. Firemen
to hospital, lab gets new concrete floor to stave off pulling down the
whole building for dioxine contamination.
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
"... by God I *KNOW* what this network is for, and you can't have it."
- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu)
WALTS BRANDON MATTHEW
Kai Henningsen <kaih=8jGaa...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>abs...@bath.ac.uk (D J Ford) wrote on 03.04.03 in <HCru3C....@bath.ac.uk>:
>> The fire escape at the halls of residence at my university lead out
>> onto a locked patio on the roof of the adjacent building. That was
>> particularly appalling - especially since the building houses the uni's
>> chemistry department. And also since the fire alarms regularly went
>> (well, were maliciously set) off in the winter.
>
>As a friend of mine (who, I believe, studied something like biochem) once
>put it:
>
>When the fire alarm goes off in the chemistry building, run. Stop when at
>the other side of the city.
Way back when I was a chemistry TA, part of our training consisted of
learning the special procedure for calling the fire department, should
the need arise. Apparently, a few years back, a TA experienced a small
fire during one of the teaching labs. They proceeded to call the fire
department directly and, somewhat panicked, exclaim that the Chemistry
building was on fire. According to the story, the FD responded with
about a dozen pieces of apparatus, and proceeded to put every remaining
fire truck in the county on standby. The responding personnel were
fully expecting to roll up to a smoking crater where the building used
to stand.
After that event, TPTB decided that a more gentle way was required to
notify the emergency services that their services were needed - so they
came up with a procedure where the campus security office would be
called, who would then check out the situation and call the city if
needed.
-BMW
Dag
news:b6idnu$m1n$1...@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au:
> I think that the problem is with the moronic manglement accepting[1]
> such requests and bending over in front of any idiot that throws a
> hissy fit. My take to it would be "*you* print to the network printer
> over there, you *you* don't print at all".
Reminds me of a place I worked where the manglement concluded that they
could get a bunch of cheap color inkjets for the price of one good color
laser printer and that everybody would be more efficient if they had a
printer within easy reach as opposed to having to go down the hall all the
time. And this way you wouldn't have to wait for someone else to finish
printing before you could print your stuff.
I am Very Glad someone else was responsible for those printers (even though
I did have to fuck with them far more often than I wanted to).
Dag
Steve VanDevender
> In article <877ka9m...@localhost.efn.org>, Steve VanDevender wrote:
> > I have thought about getting a 49G, but compared to the older HP stuff
> > the hardware is utter crap (mushy rubber keys? After experiencing
> > injection-molded plastic keys with a carefully-engineered clicky feel, I
> > just wouldn't be able to stand that). I am sticking with my HP 48SX
>
> Its guts are more or less the same as the GX's if you remove the
> expansion ports and add more RAM to it.
>
> The look (frozen rat's ass) and feel (rubber semi-sticky keys) of it
> is entirely unlike to the one a friend's 48GX left in my mind. It has
> some improvements in design (you can use the arrow keys while in Alpha
> mode, for example) and in speed (faster symbolic math), but if you
> just want a number cruncher stick with your SX.
I know the electronics in the 49G are pretty much the same as in the
48GX series. But the keyboard is icky, the display apparently has a
quite suboptimal mounting (the plastic cover produces interference
fringes with the polarizing layer in the LCD) and yes, the "frozen rat's
ass" look is just not HP. I'm not even that fond of the purple/green
key labels in the 48G/GX line, having grown up on the HP traditional
orange/blue scheme.
I have the ALG48 libraries loaded into my 48SX, so I have a pretty close
approximation to the symbolic math capabilities of the 49G (the authors
of ALG48 were later hired by HP to do the symbolic math software for the
49G).
> > until it dies, which may well be after I do. In case it goes first, I
>
> You didn't have any problems with the ENTER key, right? Like it being
> a bit loose on the right side?
Nope, it's as good now as when I got it in 1991. Its serial number
begins with 3104A so it was made in late 1990 when they still did most
of their manufacturing in the US.
Steve VanDevender
> As a friend of mine (who, I believe, studied something like biochem) once
> put it:
>
> When the fire alarm goes off in the chemistry building, run. Stop when at
> the other side of the city.
Heh. I used to work in the "Chemstores" when I was in college (they had
a UNIX box to do inventory which I helped admin, so it was kind of my
PFY job). I had left on an errand and as I approached the building on
my return, I saw smoke coming out the door. As I recall my reaction was
to think "This would be interesting to see burn . . . from a great
distance" and to quickly went off to find a distant place.
As it turned out the smoke was not from anything in Chemstores itself,
but from a transformer in the basement that must have been very magic
indeed because it let out enough smoke to fill the entire building (with
some help from the air conditioning system). Knowing that the
transformer had blown up also explained why, when in another building
during my errand, the lights had blinked out for a while.
Dave Aronson
KH> Well ... better than being told that only authorized personnel
KH> is allowed to feed in new paper, I'd say.
Sometimes not letting lusers help themselves can be a Good Thing.
Recently, wifey and I were staying at a small inn. The inn had a
restaurant. The restaurant had a fireplace. The fireplace apparently
had a self-appointed Fire Warden, one of the waitresses. I didn't much
care for her tone, but gotta admit, it was probably necessary in order
to prevent lusers from hurting themselves. This of course is a concern
only because they could have sued the inn, and, jurors largely being
also lusers, most likely would have won. The lusers may also luse badly
enough to cause damage to real people or property....
(The next day, wifey and I had the table by the fireplace. The fire
died down. I waited for staff to fix it, gave up, and I poked at it
briefly, making well-calculated immense and rapid improvements. THEN
she came over, gritched briefly, and left. The manager came over, saw I
had a clue, and gave permission....)
--
David J. Aronson, Software Engineer for hire in Washington DC area.
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, references, etc.
Kenneth Brody
[...]
> I can't count the number of times I have to put up with
> five minutes of annoying bleeping, then leave the office to find the
> printer has run out of paper, and there are half-a-dozen students
> milling about, going "What's happened?".
>
> "It's run out of paper"
> "So what do we do?"
At that point, you cross your arms, open your mouth in disbelief,
and put "you couldn't possibly have taken the same entrance exam
that I took" look on your face. Then, wait. Time how long it
takes for someone to say something.
[...]
--
+---------+----------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Kenneth | kenbrody at spamcop.net | "The opinions expressed |
| J. | http://www.hvcomputer.com | herein are not necessarily |
| Brody | http://www.fptech.com | those of fP Technologies." |
+---------+----------------------------------+-----------------------------+
Brad Sims
> I did in fact obtain another HP printer earlier this year. Thirty quid got
> me an ex-university HP Laserjet 4M+ (of similar vintage to my BJ10) with a
> full toner cartridge. It's practically brand new - it's barely done 123,000
> pages.
>
> I'm sure I'll still be using it in 2010...
I just got a printer from Ebay myself, Laserjet4+ 14M, PS, and Jetdirect
card... print count says 36K (Yes I know that it can be made to lie, but
so far it does what I tell it to, so "Eh"). How could I say no?...
--
The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health
foods. The result can only be a disarmed, exhausted, and half-starved
population ready to acquiesce to dictatorship of some kind.
-- P.J. O'Rourke
Arvid Grøtting
> After that event, TPTB decided that a more gentle way was required to
> notify the emergency services that their services were needed - so they
> came up with a procedure where the campus security office would be
> called, who would then check out the situation and call the city if
> needed.
That's one of the more luserish reactions I've ever seen.
If there's a fire in the chemistry department, you, and anyone else in
the city, *want* the fire department to do their dance. Immediately.
Here, I'm happy to know that the chemistry department (as well as most
of the rest of the university) has smoke detectors hooked into an
alarm system that calls the fire department. Yes, that means that the
big red trucks show up there from time to time with no fire to put
out, but it also means that when there *is* a fire to put out, they
also show up.
(They do send a bill whenever there's a false alarm, though. If there
has been a fire, however small, they don't.)
--
VBScript is designed to be a secure programming environment. It
lacks various commands that can be potentially damaging if used in
a malicious manner. This added security is critical in enterprise
solutions. -- support.microsoft.com
Paul Tomblin
>(They do send a bill whenever there's a false alarm, though. If there
>has been a fire, however small, they don't.)
So as soon as the alarms go off, you set a fire, right?
--
Paul Tomblin, Freenet News Administrator.
"Carpe Daemon - Seize the Background Process"
Jasper Janssen
wrote:
>In a previous article, "Arvid =?iso-8859-1?q?Gr=F8tting?=" <arv...@regina.uio.no> said:
>>(They do send a bill whenever there's a false alarm, though. If there
>>has been a fire, however small, they don't.)
>
>So as soon as the alarms go off, you set a fire, right?
So that's why there's a special metal wastebasket sitting in that corner
where the flameretardant wallpaint was tested, filled with paper.
Jasper
Arvid Grøtting
>>So as soon as the alarms go off, you set a fire, right?
>
> So that's why there's a special metal wastebasket sitting in that corner
> where the flameretardant wallpaint was tested, filled with paper.
Mostly, people don't. The fire would also have to be set in a place
matching the set-off smoke detector, and I'm sure there are LARTs for
those who do, and get caught.
Me, I've only ever set off smoke alarms by cooking or by using a smoke
machine. The time my shirt was on fire, no alarms went off.
--
A reply comes back, from a... errm... it
Arvid doesn't sound A and it doesn't sound I.
Must be a human.
Dima, in a.s.n-n r
Mike Andrews
> Many moons ago I worked in a fabric manufacturing facility which had ratty
> old wooden buildings with plenty of old wiring and leaky roofs. In an effort
> to reduce their property insurance a large number of employees went through
> a training exercise (thinly disguised fire extinguisher sales pitch)
> provided by a company that sold fire extinguishers. They were then
> designated FETPs (Fire Extinguisher-Trained Personnel).
Fabric manufacturing facility, eh? As in lots of lint and scraps of thread
all over, Just Waiting For A Spark? Nice place to be a long way from.
> The company as many fire extinguishers placed in strategic locations as were
> needed to satisfy the city fire department and the insurance company. We all
> hoped they wouldn't endanger firefighters by "cooking off" as the building
> burned, because we sure weren't going to stick around and use them in the
> event of a fire.
If there is as much flammable stuff around as I've seen in my visits
to various fabric factories, fire extinguishers are for show only.
--
Any site should be designed so that it's usable as a dead file tree with
no server-side smarts. Any sort of active pages or search engines should
be an add-on, not essential.
-- Peter da Silva, in a.s.r.
Maarten Wiltink
Your shift key appears to be stuck.
<snip>
>-BMW
Man, I'd hate to be you. Did your father have a thing
for European cars?
Tebrgwrf,
Maarten Wiltink
David Cameron Staples
on those occasions when I was not sick as a result of fumes/funk/
no heating in winter.
The process is
1: dunk Metal To Be Plated (MTBP) into scalding hot caustic soda
(to remove grease and oils)
2: rinse in water (important!)
3: dunk MTBP into high concentration Hydrochloric Acid
(to remove rust and/or any previous plating) see why
rinsing well is important?
4: rinse in water
5: if MTBP not clean enough, goto 1, else
6: dunk MTBP into slightly caustic plating solution, and wait
until the proper amount of $METAL has been deposited, where
$METAL = Zinc, Tin, Gold, whatever.
7: rinse in water
8: if required, dunk MTBP into passivate solution, for a coloured
finish (bright, blued, olive drab, black).
9: end.
Note the HCl in there. In the Cadmium plating process, another
pleasant substance is required. Sodium Cyanide ... supplied as
drums of white powder with lots of skull&crossbones on them.
Just imagine the possiblities for fun if you accidentaly
mix HCl + NaCy = NaCl (table salt in crystals everywhere) +
HCy (Hydrogen Cyanide - a green cloud of gas which will kill
everybody in the building). Wheee! I talked with a guy
at one point who had been exposed to the results of this
chemistry experiment. He had to fix a broked automated
line where the outlet pipe was blocked, and the HCl+NaCy had
happened. He called the fire brigade, then held his breath,
ducked in, fixed the block (pulled a rag out of the drain),
got out of the room in under 30 seconds, saved the building
and everyone else in it, and woke up in hospital.
Exercises in how to get your hands on high concentration HCl
and NaCy without being a plating plant or triggering terrorist
alarms are left to the reader.
--
David Cameron Staples University of Melbourne
staples AT cs DOT mu DOT oz DOT au Department of Computer Science
Technician 111 Barry St. Parkville, Melbourne, Australia
Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13]
> I worked for a while at an Electroplating shop. It was an education,
> on those occasions when I was not sick as a result of fumes/funk/
> no heating in winter.
>
> The process is
> 1: dunk Metal To Be Plated (MTBP) into scalding hot caustic soda
> (to remove grease and oils)
> 2: rinse in water (important!)
> 3: dunk MTBP into high concentration Hydrochloric Acid
> (to remove rust and/or any previous plating) see why
> rinsing well is important?
> Just imagine the possiblities for fun if you accidentaly
> mix HCl + NaCy = NaCl (table salt in crystals everywhere) +
> HCy (Hydrogen Cyanide - a green cloud of gas which will kill
> everybody in the building). Wheee! I talked with a guy
Wheee! indeed. And - actually it's NaCN and HCN.
Almonds, anyone? Salty almonds?
> at one point who had been exposed to the results of this
> chemistry experiment. He had to fix a broked automated
> line where the outlet pipe was blocked, and the HCl+NaCy had
> happened. He called the fire brigade, then held his breath,
> ducked in, fixed the block (pulled a rag out of the drain),
> got out of the room in under 30 seconds, saved the building
> and everyone else in it, and woke up in hospital.
He was lucky enough to wake up. Did they build him a statue for
that? I would've limited to evacuating the building and let the
masked men do their thing. But that's just me.
> Exercises in how to get your hands on high concentration HCl
> and NaCy without being a plating plant or triggering terrorist
> alarms are left to the reader.
Cue story on how to poison 3 rivers with cyanide. Works a treat
especially if the gubmints make sure no information is public until
it's too late.
Ino!~
--
I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire
off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark
near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time,
like tears in rain. Time to die.
D J Ford
>>
>> "It's run out of paper"
>> "So what do we do?"
>
>Well ... better than being told that only authorized personnel is allowed
>to feed in new paper, I'd say. With the implication that you may be
>working for uni IT, but that doesn't make you competent enough to feed in
>new paper.
Ouch - fortunately, the machine in question is very much 'my'
printer. Unfortunately, the students are allowed entry
to the building at night, to the computer rooms at night and
my printers at night. I hate students.
>> Hmm. I did once manage to make a PC catch fire - and I'm still not
>> quite sure why it did. The cable *looked* like an ATA cable... -
>
>Maybe it had a break with a gap just narrow enough to spark?
No sparks - just melting ribbon cable, followed by burning plastic
and flames. Small, but worrying. It was a rubbish PC however - an
NFG machine from a batch that had had it's cache disabled because
that was the only way they could get the network cards to work.
They (NFG) had bodged the BIOS in order to get it to say that the
cache *was* turned on though. Then they shipped us the machines
and we had to use them. This was years ago, however - and not,
thankfully the current disorganisation that I ork at. I'll never
buy NFG though.
D J Ford
>After that event, TPTB decided that a more gentle way was required to
>notify the emergency services that their services were needed - so they
>came up with a procedure where the campus security office would be
>called, who would then check out the situation and call the city if
>needed.
That would be TPTB who, I suspect, don't live anywhere near the
said chemistry building?
What an insane idea - ringing up the security office to come look at
the fire to decide if it's serious enough to call the big red trucks -
if your security lot are anything like our security lot, they wouldn't
even manage to react to a major burglary since they're probably too busy
carrying paralytic students back to their hovels.
Dave
D J Ford
>> "It's run out of paper"
>> "So what do we do?"
>
>At that point, you cross your arms, open your mouth in disbelief,
>and put "you couldn't possibly have taken the same entrance exam
>that I took" look on your face. Then, wait. Time how long it
>takes for someone to say something.
'put ... on'? I don't think that look leaves my face until June
when the kiddies leave and I'm allowed to do some real work.
Dammit - don't people realise that computers work best when no-one
is using them? And they're even more reliable when they don't
get switched on at all?
Dave
D J Ford
>.... Wheee! I talked with a guy
>at one point who had been exposed to the results of this
>chemistry experiment. He had to fix a broked automated
>line where the outlet pipe was blocked, and the HCl+NaCy had
>happened. He called the fire brigade, then held his breath,
>ducked in, fixed the block (pulled a rag out of the drain),
>got out of the room in under 30 seconds, saved the building
>and everyone else in it, and woke up in hospital.
Fscking hell - brave and/or insane. I hope he got a statue
put up in his honour.
Dave
Jasper Janssen
>No sparks - just melting ribbon cable, followed by burning plastic
>and flames. Small, but worrying. It was a rubbish PC however - an
>NFG machine from a batch that had had it's cache disabled because
>that was the only way they could get the network cards to work.
>
>They (NFG) had bodged the BIOS in order to get it to say that the
>cache *was* turned on though. Then they shipped us the machines
>and we had to use them. This was years ago, however - and not,
>thankfully the current disorganisation that I ork at. I'll never
>buy NFG though.
Was there any real cache in it at all? Back in the 486 era, certain
suppliers (*coughPCChipscough*) would put in fake cache chips, consisting
of just appropriately labeled black plastic bits without any actual
silicon in, and would then bungle the BIOS appropriately.
This was one of the events that led to my solemn vow to never ever let
another PC Chips product into my house again, though the personal
experiences with a "TXPro" chipset board and an even worse Super Socket 7
one had more to do with it.
Jasper
Mike Andrews
> > at one point who had been exposed to the results of this
> > chemistry experiment. He had to fix a broked automated
> > line where the outlet pipe was blocked, and the HCl+NaCy had
> > happened. He called the fire brigade, then held his breath,
> > ducked in, fixed the block (pulled a rag out of the drain),
> > got out of the room in under 30 seconds, saved the building
> > and everyone else in it, and woke up in hospital.
> He was lucky enough to wake up. Did they build him a statue for
> that? I would've limited to evacuating the building and let the
> masked men do their thing. But that's just me.
Most places that use cyanides have some Na Thiosulfate solution ready
for use, just in case someone gets *CN spilled on him or has to go
into a room with *CN gas in the air, in situations like this, and some
amyl nitrite ampules ready for inhaling, to counteract the effects of
inhaled or skin-contact *CN gas.
> > Exercises in how to get your hands on high concentration HCl
> > and NaCy without being a plating plant or triggering terrorist
> > alarms are left to the reader.
> Cue story on how to poison 3 rivers with cyanide. Works a treat
> especially if the gubmints make sure no information is public until
> it's too late.
ell, we don't want to scare the tourists, do we? And if we don't bring
it to their attention, then the folks on the excursion boats won't see
the zillions of dead fish floating belly-up on the surface, either. So
there's no problem if we don't say there's a problem, and to say that
there was a problem would be DoublePlusUngood.
--
I just overheard someone referring to Solaris 2.6 as a "virgin
operating system". With a straight face, no less. In one sense, I can
see it. The one whereby it knows what it wants to do, it's just not
entirely sure how... -- Carl Jacobs
Steven Hill
> for use, just in case someone gets *CN spilled on him or has to go
> into a room with *CN gas in the air, in situations like this, and some
> amyl nitrite ampules ready for inhaling, to counteract the effects of
> inhaled or skin-contact *CN gas.
That and Amyl Nitrite (poppers) for small wafts of HCN, I can't remember
the injection... Kelcyanor, or something like that, which is supposed to
only be administered by "trained" people, since if you don't have HCN
poisoning, it will kill you instead.
All this from handling gassing powders on farms.
--
Steven Hill
``He who controls the Spice, controls the universe!''
- Baron Harkonnen, Dune.
Omri Schwarz
Insane. HCN can permeate through mucous membranes.)
--
Omri Schwarz --- ocs...@mit.edu ('h' before war)
Timeless wisdom of biomedical engineering: "Noise is principally
due to the presence of the patient." -- R.F. Farr
Chris Suslowicz
abs...@bath.ac.uk (D J Ford) wrote:
> ...It was a rubbish PC however - an
> NFG machine from a batch that had had it's cache disabled because
> that was the only way they could get the network cards to work.
>
> They (NFG) had bodged the BIOS in order to get it to say that the
> cache *was* turned on though. Then they shipped us the machines
> and we had to use them.
...
> I'll never buy NFG though.
Fb gur NFG znpuvar jnf AST. Truly another excellent ROT-ism.
Chris.
--
"Sir Henry was best known for inventing the "Doppler Shift" school of
music; getting the orchestra to play rapidly rising or descending
scales. This causes the orchestra to move. Initial scepticism on the
merits of this new art-form were dispelled when the London Symphony
Orchestra were timed at 75MPH through a police speed-trap"
--tanuki, posting in the scary devil monastery.
Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13]
> Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13] <ino...@nqzvaonfr.arg> wrote:
>
>> He was lucky enough to wake up. Did they build him a statue for
>> that? I would've limited to evacuating the building and let the
>> masked men do their thing. But that's just me.
>
> Most places that use cyanides have some Na Thiosulfate solution ready
> for use, just in case someone gets *CN spilled on him or has to go
> into a room with *CN gas in the air, in situations like this, and some
> amyl nitrite ampules ready for inhaling, to counteract the effects of
> inhaled or skin-contact *CN gas.
While this may well be true, I have this sinking feeling that none
of the people there knew what Na Thiosulfate or amyl nitrite is, let
alone how to use it so it would save someone's life.
[...]
>> Cue story on how to poison 3 rivers with cyanide. Works a treat
>> especially if the gubmints make sure no information is public until
>> it's too late.
>
> [W]ell, we don't want to scare the tourists, do we? And if we don't bring
> it to their attention, then the folks on the excursion boats won't see
> the zillions of dead fish floating belly-up on the surface, either. So
Fish floating belly up is not much of a problem, the problem aggravates
when you see lusers picking up and selling said fish.
> there's no problem if we don't say there's a problem, and to say that
> there was a problem would be DoublePlusUngood.
Expelling 76 diplomats (or the equivalent attention distracting action)
will always do the trick.
Mike Andrews
> In article <92gka.3106$0e7....@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com>, Mike Andrews wrote:
> > Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13] <ino...@nqzvaonfr.arg> wrote:
> >
> >> He was lucky enough to wake up. Did they build him a statue for
> >> that? I would've limited to evacuating the building and let the
> >> masked men do their thing. But that's just me.
> >
> > Most places that use cyanides have some Na Thiosulfate solution ready
> > for use, just in case someone gets *CN spilled on him or has to go
> > into a room with *CN gas in the air, in situations like this, and some
> > amyl nitrite ampules ready for inhaling, to counteract the effects of
> > inhaled or skin-contact *CN gas.
> While this may well be true, I have this sinking feeling that none
> of the people there knew what Na Thiosulfate or amyl nitrite is, let
> alone how to use it so it would save someone's life.
OK, Mike's Quick Course in Surviving Gaseous Cyanide Exposure.
Pay attention, because this really _could_ save your life.
1) Sodium thiosulfate (photographer's "hypo" fixing solution) eats
the CN radical. If you have to be somewhere that has loose *CN
gas, soak a handkerchief or some paper towels in sodium
thiosulfate solution and breathe through it. It doesn't smell all
that bad, and when compared to the alternative you might get to
like the odor. Now leave. Quickly.
2) Amyl nitrite is a counteragent for inhaled *CN. If you're exposed
to *CN, or if someone else is and you're a first responder, crack
an ampoule of amyl nitrite and have the victim breathe it in. A
lot.
3) Sodium thiosulfate neutralizes spilled *CN solutions. If you Can
Not leave, them pour lots of the stuff into the spill. Then pour
more. And then pour some more. But you really ought to leave.
> [...]
> >> Cue story on how to poison 3 rivers with cyanide. Works a treat
> >> especially if the gubmints make sure no information is public until
> >> it's too late.
> >
> > [W]ell, we don't want to scare the tourists, do we? And if we don't bring
> > it to their attention, then the folks on the excursion boats won't see
> > the zillions of dead fish floating belly-up on the surface, either. So
> Fish floating belly up is not much of a problem, the problem aggravates
> when you see lusers picking up and selling said fish.
> > there's no problem if we don't say there's a problem, and to say that
> > there was a problem would be DoublePlusUngood.
> Expelling 76 diplomats (or the equivalent attention distracting action)
> will always do the trick.
This was which three rivers? When? URL?
--
"Died. Woke up in Hell. Punched in PIN, logged on. Just another day."
-- David Gerard
Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13]
Crap, where's the damn string marking this as a STR? Was intended as a
pointer to a "Yes Minister" episode.
> This was which three rivers? When? URL?
Somes, Tisa and Danube. January 2000.
http://www.rec.org/REC/Publications/CyanideSpill/ENGCyanide.pdf
Richard Bos
> Richard P. Grant staggered into the Black Sun and said:
> > ... (b) discharged a (CO2) fire
> >extinguisher at a piece of smoking equipment because no one else thought
> >to, ...
>
> If it's a piece of computer equipment, a typical luser move is to call
> Support.
s/computer//. I get called for the most idiotic kinds of devices. A
copier, ok, I can get that, because I can see why it's absolutely
impossible to distinguish between a copier and a printer when you
haven't had a working brain for at least twenty years, but phones? And
no, for the umpteenth time, I do _not_ know how our burglar alarm works,
nor do I want to, really.
Richard
David P. Murphy
> In article <b6hrsb$c86$2...@allhats.xcski.com>,
> David P. Murphy <d...@myths.com> wrote:
> : There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
> : To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
> : besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
> : a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
> :
> : DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
> Wha...how...?
>
> Did someone actually TRY that? How did they do it? Did it work?
> For any descriptions of "work" beyond "printer stares bewildered
> at giganto-slab[tm] of paper".
It is interesting to learn just how many people in the world are so
used to the A# system that it does not occur to them that a typo
caused purely by ignorance might be the case.
I am in va.us and the person who made the sign certainly meant "A4";
as far as I know, I'm the only one who is aware of the mistake,
which means a total of zero people care. After all, the sign *does*
accomplish its purpose: users check to make sure they are putting
8.5" x 11" into the tray.
ok
dpm
--
David P. Murphy http://www.myths.com/~dpm/
systems programmer ftp://ftp.myths.com
mailto:d...@myths.com (personal)
COGITO ERGO DISCLAMO mailto:Murphy...@emc.com (work)
David P. Murphy
> d...@myths.com (David P. Murphy) wrote:
>>There is a standard laser printer four meters from my cube.
>>To prevent problems occuring from people feeding it anything
>>besides its desired 8.5" x 11" or 8.5" x 14" diet, there is
>>a large sign taped to the front warning, and I quote:
>>
>> DO NOT PUT A1 SIZE PAPER INTO THE PRINTER
> ITYM A4, HTH HAND
We are gathered here today for a solemn occasion, to honor the memory
of a good joke which fell victim to a crude, pointless rebuttal by a
poster temporarily bereft of sanity and decorum.
It wasn't an especially brilliant joke. It was not destined for the
hallowed halls of rec.humor.funny, nor would it ever see print in that
respected bastion of laughter known as _Reader's Digest_. But it was
a brave joke which pulled its own weight through the workday, and could
be counted upon as a good conversation piece at the water cooler.
All it asked was that it be allowed to amuse, however briefly, a few
co-workers so that a welcoming smile might brighten their day.
That simple request has now been forever denied. Its demise is our loss,
cut down in its prime by a thoughtless monk who was unable to recognize
or appreciate the quiet beauty of its subtlely.
So, as we surf here this day, mostly during hours being billed as work,
we mourn the untimely and tragic death of this little bit of humor,
and we shall all swear to spare no effort to make sure that its dream
of a happy workplace free of ignorant lusers who JUST DON'T GET THE JOKE
will one day become real.
Amen.
Steven Hill
> copier, ok, I can get that, because I can see why it's absolutely
> impossible to distinguish between a copier and a printer when you
> haven't had a working brain for at least twenty years, but phones? And
> no, for the umpteenth time, I do _not_ know how our burglar alarm works,
> nor do I want to, really.
I used to get that sort of call with monotonous regularity.
If the device uses electricity, it is in the IT department remit.
Someone raised a call for replacement batteries for a cordless mouse.
I mean, batteries ffs.
Carry on.
--
Steven Hill
``Video barbam et pallium; philosophum nondum video''
Shalom Septimus
wrote:
>1) Sodium thiosulfate (photographer's "hypo" fixing solution) eats
> the CN radical.
Eats all halogen radicals, if I remember correctly, and CN- behaves like
a halide in many chemical reactions. When I did the one synthesis I ran
in college that required pure Br2, I had some sodium thiosulfate
solution mixed and ready to use, should a drop of the nasty stuff 1)
spill, and 2) get through the gloves I was wearing. As it happens,
neither of the above occurred, but better to have it and not need it
than vice versa.
--
Shalom
Brandon Walts
> wal...@cardinal.cs.colorado.edu (WALTS BRANDON MATTHEW) writes:
>
>> After that event, TPTB decided that a more gentle way was required to
>> notify the emergency services that their services were needed - so they
>> came up with a procedure where the campus security office would be
>> called, who would then check out the situation and call the city if
>> needed.
>
> That's one of the more luserish reactions I've ever seen.
>
> If there's a fire in the chemistry department, you, and anyone else in
> the city, *want* the fire department to do their dance. Immediately.
Indeed. It's slightly less luserish when one takes into account the
other reason for this policy, that being the large number of false
alarms that were regularly being called in from the campus. Basically,
the city was threatening to refuse to respond (or maybe they had stopped
responding - the details are getting a bit hazy) unless the campus
security people called in to verify that yes, there was a real need.
It still seems like a better solution could be found. This being
a university, some supplemental education for the folks who found it
necessary to call in alarms, perhaps? "Stand over there, son, and
prepare to fully appreciate what we mean by '1000 gallons per minute'."
-BMW
Brandon Walts
> WALTS BRANDON MATTHEW wrote in message <3e8f384e$1...@cs.colorado.edu>...
>
> Your shift key appears to be stuck.
Yikes. Nothing like returning to a newsgroup after a several-year
hiatus and promptly stepping on your own dick. Especially when it's
followed by usenet access getting flaky for a few days.
><snip>
>
>>-BMW
>
> Man, I'd hate to be you. Did your father have a thing
> for European cars?
>
Why, yes, actually. That, and the lack of family tradition or
any other reason to explain my name, leads one to a somewhat
disturbing conclusion, despite parental protestations to the
contrary. I'm imagining that, at one point, there was a bank
account known as the "BMW fund" that found itself suddenly
morphed into a doctor's bills/food/college savings fund.
-B "I want to be an M-series when I grow up" W
Alex Priem
>In article <l8k7e8g...@gorgon.netfonds.no>, Arvid Grøtting wrote:
>> wal...@cardinal.cs.colorado.edu (WALTS BRANDON MATTHEW) writes:
>>
>> That's one of the more luserish reactions I've ever seen.
>>
>> If there's a fire in the chemistry department, you, and anyone else in
>> the city, *want* the fire department to do their dance. Immediately.
>
>Indeed. It's slightly less luserish when one takes into account the
>other reason for this policy, that being the large number of false
>alarms that were regularly being called in from the campus.
It also becomes less luserish if you take into account that a burning
university chemistry department is not quite the same as a chemical plant
going up in flames. Hell, buildings with asbestos everywhere are probably
more dangerous.
However, since most unis in .nl are royally covered with asbestos, to the
point that labs are declared 'verboten to work', the first poster still
might have a point :-)
(BTW:You might be an 'immediate' BOFH, but that doesn't mean that you can't
be a luser on other areas)
Alex
Maarten Wiltink
> [...] I get called for the most idiotic kinds of devices. A
>copier, ok, I can get that, because I can see why it's absolutely
>impossible to distinguish between a copier and a printer when you
>haven't had a working brain for at least twenty years, ...
Work has a copier that's also a printer. A bloody fast
printer, and it does A3, too (this is Europe, yes). The
first time I tried to use it as a copier, though, I ended
up with four copies.
Because it was waiting to start printing something else
(this can happen in an also-a-network-printer), so when
nothing came out, I pressed the "GO! Damnit!" button again.
And again. And again. (This is the Teutonic school of making
sure that it's not working.)
And then, suddenly, paper started pouring out like it
suddenly was a copier again. Somebody else's ten pages,
and my four copies. Confusing. Sometimes it's being a
printer, and sometimes it's being a copier.
Tebrgwrf,
Maarten Wiltink
Chris Suslowicz
"Maarten Wiltink" <maa...@kittensandcats.net> wrote:
> Work has a copier that's also a printer. A bloody fast
> printer, and it does A3, too (this is Europe, yes). The
> first time I tried to use it as a copier, though, I ended
> up with four copies.
>
> And then, suddenly, paper started pouring out like it
> suddenly was a copier again. Somebody else's ten pages,
> and my four copies. Confusing. Sometimes it's being a
> printer, and sometimes it's being a copier.
...but quite a lot of the time, it's in bits with Field Circus
poking it with a screwdriver?
Chris.
--
An entire village where nobody's prepared to admit to being root,
and everyone has to be addressed by number because both forward
and reverse DNS is broken. -- The Prisoner, described by Tanuki
Jeremiah DeWitt Weiner
> Work has a copier that's also a printer.
Speaking of which, fresh hell from my orkplace. A while
back, we were all urged to save money (to cover up for upper management's
spending it like water, natch[0]). $500 was the amount we were all told we
should try to save. Since I don't even have a budget of $500, it's hard
to see how I could save $500 off it short of donating money out of my
paycheck back to the company, but whatever. Our Windows admins (not bad
guys, really, despite their unfortunate choice of OS) recently installed a
new color printer. Of course every luser must immediately print everything
on the color printer. Simple creatures, bright colors; it was to be
expected.
Windows admins, alarmed at the rate of toner expenditure and
the high cost of cartridges, announce that general access to the color
printer will be suspended: you can still submit your job to a queue, but
it will be inspected manually to make sure it's an appropriate use for
the color printer. Instead of being applauded for at least trying to
DTRT, they get yelled at and told to reinstate general access. Our
best guess is that manglement likes to print up color Powerpoint
presentations on "Our employees, why they suck so much, and how we can
make their lives hell", and they didn't want the peons reading them.
JDW
[0] I am currently working on a project costing the company $4M.
No, wait, $12M. No, wait, $25M. The stated goal of this project
was to save the company money by replacing an architecture that mostly
worked and would have cost us maybe $2M to maintain over the next four
years. But our manglement comes from the Josef Goebbels school of
public speaking, and it works as well as ever.
--
If mail to me bounces, try removing the "+STRING" part of the address.
Martijn Berlage
>...but quite a lot of the time, it's in bits with Field Circus
>poking it with a screwdriver?
Oh, sweet memory of that NazgulTec printer/copier. It's printer
interface card went into autistic mode about twice a day. After
several visitations of the field circus, one technician got tired of
it and provided me with the instructions how to reset te card.
This was about a page long, and involved pressing a lot of buttons on
the machine. I carefully pointed out that simply switching it off and
on again would be *much* faster, and at least as effective as his
'solution', allthough still not as effective as a functional machine.
So he left, saying "Well, it works now.". I wished him a nice day, and
said "See you tomorrow.", went back to my desk, picked up a phone and
booked another circus performance for the next day.
Repeat ad nauseam.
Martijn
Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13]
> Maarten Wiltink <maa...@kittensandcats.net> wrote:
>> Work has a copier that's also a printer.
>
> Speaking of which, fresh hell from my orkplace. A while
> back, we were all urged to save money (to cover up for upper management's
> spending it like water, natch[0]). $500 was the amount we were all told we
> should try to save. Since I don't even have a budget of $500, it's hard
> to see how I could save $500 off it short of donating money out of my
> paycheck back to the company, but whatever.
Oh, that one's easy. You start using a large jar for toilet. Not
flushing preciousssss money down the toilet will be appreciated when
you present them with your savings.
> Our Windows admins (not bad
> guys, really, despite their unfortunate choice of OS) recently installed a
> new color printer. Of course every luser must immediately print everything
> on the color printer. Simple creatures, bright colors; it was to be
> expected.
BTDT - Krebk Svrel toy. Major *SHINY!* points. Fortunately (?) they were
only evaluating it - and I evaluated the crap out of it printing
$BIG_NUM of digital pictures. Damn good printer.
>
> Windows admins, alarmed at the rate of toner expenditure and
> the high cost of cartridges, announce that general access to the color
> printer will be suspended: you can still submit your job to a queue, but
> it will be inspected manually to make sure it's an appropriate use for
> the color printer. Instead of being applauded for at least trying to
> DTRT, they get yelled at and told to reinstate general access. Our
> best guess is that manglement likes to print up color Powerpoint
> presentations on "Our employees, why they suck so much, and how we can
> make their lives hell", and they didn't want the peons reading them.
Hell no. The manglement at $WORK-1 imposed that @MANGLERS can print
anywhere they wanted. @SLAVES were to print to their designated printers
*period!*. There were a few chosen ones though who could print, for some
"unkonwn" reason, to any printer. </innocent whistle>
Shalom Septimus
>It was a rubbish PC however - an
>NFG machine from a batch that had had it's cache disabled because
>that was the only way they could get the network cards to work.
>
>They (NFG)
Until I saw these last two words, rather than an EBGism of an actual
company name, I was assuming that NFG was simply an abbreviation for
No Fscking Good.
I have no experience with the company in question (was confusing them
with NYE) but I'd assume from what he said above that I wasn't far off.
--
Shalom
Alan Frame
> In article <b771fe$6cp$1...@reader1.panix.com>, Jeremiah DeWitt Weiner wrote:
[]
> > Our Windows admins (not bad
> > guys, really, despite their unfortunate choice of OS) recently installed a
> > new color printer.
> BTDT -
[]
> > Windows admins, alarmed at the rate of toner expenditure and
> > the high cost of cartridges, announce that general access to the color
> > printer will be suspended: you can still submit your job to a queue, but
> > it will be inspected manually to make sure it's an appropriate use for
> > the color printer. Instead of being applauded for at least trying to
> > DTRT, they get yelled at and told to reinstate general access.
BTDT, been asked to implement "logging & quotas of colour printer
usage".
Didn't bother.
Didn't try to solve human problem with technology solution.
Moved colour printer to right in front of Beancounter's desk.
Got deckchair and thermos flask and sat down to watch Our Favourite
Fight; marketing lusers vs finance lusers.
rgds, Alan
--
99 Ducati 748BP, 95 Ducati 600SS, 81 Guzzi Monza, 74 MV Agusta 350
"Ride to Work, Work to Ride" SI# 7.067 DoD#1930 PGP Key 0xBDED56C5
Earl Grey
> BTDT, been asked to implement "logging & quotas of colour printer usage".
[snip]
> Moved colour printer to right in front of Beancounter's desk.
Good Thinking!
Dave Aronson
J> best guess is that manglement likes to print up color Powerpoint
J> presentations on "Our employees, why they suck so much, and how we can
J> make their lives hell", and they didn't want the peons reading them.
Naaah, much simpler than that. They want a color-pr0n monopoly....
--
David J. Aronson, Software Engineer for hire in Washington DC area.
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, references, etc.
Jeremiah DeWitt Weiner
> flushing preciousssss money down the toilet will be appreciated when
> you present them with your savings.
Funny you should mention that. One of the three bathroom sinks
on our floor has been broken for months. Responsible Persons are quite
aware of this - as their political solution to a technical problem was to
put up a sign that says "DO NOT USE THIS SINK".[0] I should go shake hands
with them and say "I only wash my hands after using the toilet two out
of three times, thanks to you. Feeling lucky today?"
JDW
[0] OTOH, perhaps they are afraid of the Plumbing Field Circus.
One of the other sinks once got "fixed", and now its handles work in
reverse from every other sink in the building.
Tanuki the Raccoon-dog
MERSM...@panix.com> said
>Bogdan Iamandei [ROT13] <ino...@nqzvaonfr.arg> wrote:
>> Oh, that one's easy. You start using a large jar for toilet. Not
>> flushing preciousssss money down the toilet will be appreciated when
>> you present them with your savings.
>
> Funny you should mention that. One of the three bathroom sinks
>on our floor has been broken for months. Responsible Persons are quite
>aware of this - as their political solution to a technical problem was to
>put up a sign that says "DO NOT USE THIS SINK".[0] I should go shake hands
>with them and say "I only wash my hands after using the toilet two out
>of three times, thanks to you. Feeling lucky today?"
Or do an Ancient Mariner on the Responsible Persons, and stop one in
three of their emails, purely out of sympathy for the sinks...
--
!Raised Tails! -:Tanuki:-
"I wish I could remember where I got that albatross" - The Amnesiac Mariner.
D J Ford
> Funny you should mention that. One of the three bathroom sinks
>on our floor has been broken for months. Responsible Persons are quite
>aware of this - as their political solution to a technical problem was to
>with them and say "I only wash my hands after using the toilet two out
>of three times, thanks to you. Feeling lucky today?"
Of course, manglement's prefered solution would be to then go and
install warm air hand dryers, those saving you from the risk of
disease from soiled towels and the threat of chaping[1].
This is achieved mostly, I suspect, by encouraging people not to dry
their hands at all (and thus, to not bother washing them).
Or, worse, if people *do* wash their hands, they invaribly dry them
on the seat of their trousers since no one has enough time in the
world to waste using a warm air hand dryer. I think I'd prefer the
soiled towels.
I really don't know why they can't be honest about it and just put
'These dryers have been installed because it's cheaper to let our
employees have damp, clammy hands than it is to buy paper towels.'
Dave
Geoff Lane
> I really don't know why they can't be honest about it and just put
> 'These dryers have been installed because it's cheaper to let our
> employees have damp, clammy hands than it is to buy paper towels.'
As I pointed out when damagement replaced our roller towels with dryers,
"Sometimes you want to wash other parts of your body[0]", to no effect.
[0] Your face, obviously.
--
/\ Geoff. Lane. /\ Manchester Computing /\ Manchester /\ M13 9PL /\ England /\
Today's Excuse: IRQ-problems with the Un-Interruptible-Power-Supply
Stuart Lamble
USEnet wrote:
> Geoff Lane staggered into the Black Sun and said:
>>As I pointed out when damagement replaced our roller towels with dryers,
>>"Sometimes you want to wash other parts of your body[0]", to no effect.
>>
>>[0] Your face, obviously.
>
> upwards.
You don't want to do that. You really, really, really don't want to do
that. AIUI, there's a serious risk of eye fusion (presumably through
drying out the eye) if you do that kind of thing.
In my case, the risk is greater -- I regularly wear contact lenses, and
you _definitely_ don't want contacts to dry out. Trust me on this. This
(applied to a luser that wears contacts) would make an excellent LART.
Of course, I could be wrong. Feel free to correct me.
--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".
Rik Steenwinkel
USEnet) persuaded newsservers all over the world to carry the following:
} Hand-dryers around here have nozzles that you can rotate to aim the air
} upwards.
Those seem to be getting scarce here, just as the models that are
activated by depressing a button. Most of the current crop have a PIR
sensor, which keeps the unit from wasting energy on heating cold hands.
--
// Rik Steenwinkel # VMS mercenary # Enschede, Netherlands
// 1024D/CDBAE5C1
David P. Murphy
> 'These dryers have been installed because it's cheaper to let our
> employees have damp, clammy hands than it is to buy paper towels.'
ITYM
"The chief maladies prevented by the use of hot-air hand dryers
are poverty and unemployment among the owners and employees of
the World Dryer Corporation, which, incidentally, no longer adorns
its product with the famous piece of literature to which you refer."
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_279.html
st...@madcelt.org
Or it could be an attempt to be 'environmentally friendly' like the fucking
dipshit hippie who tried to convince manglement to get rid of the paper
towels in the toilets and the kitchen, because "the bleaching process
hurts the environment". This is the self same fuckwit that drives an
old VW Kombi that spews smoke in to the atmosphere like a chain smoker.
He shut up when I did some BOTE calculations showing him how much
energy would be spent washing the cloth towels he suggested we replace
the paper ones with.
Typical short sighted hippy bullshit thinking like this pisses me off.
Walking through the CBD the other day, I was accosted by a bunch of
greenies pushing[1] the anti-logging-save-the-forest 'literature'
they are famous for. The opening line was "Do you want to save the
forrest? There's only 8% left!" To which I replied "Based on whose
figures?" Greenie was stumped. And to add insult to injury, they didn't
even have the decency to have any cute girl greenies with them.
[1] I keep typing puching for some reason. Guess the subconscious is
hinting at how I should take over.
--
Stevo st...@madcelt.org
"when I'm not on-line"? What does that mean?
- Paul Tomblin
Rik Steenwinkel
} Hey, I didn't say I'd ever seen a nozzle actually rotated upwards, or
} anyone using it to dry their face.
I've seen it suggested on the pictogram thingies on the thusly-equipped
dryers.
mike--d
> >You don't want to do that. You really, really, really don't want to do
> >that.
>
> Hey, I didn't say I'd ever seen a nozzle actually rotated upwards, or
> anyone using it to dry their face.
Except in Madonna's video ``who's that girl?'', as far I could remember.
Anyway, what is the difference from those air nozzles and the normal
hair dryers? I think they are almost the same, so if those nozzles are
dangerous, hair dryers are dangerous too...
Mike
Alan Frame
/Sometimes/ it's good to remove the mystique from things if you want
lusers to understand them.
Luser: Help I can't send any email - it's complaining about quotas - who
do I see to get more space?
ME: Hmm, let me think.... You work for Larry; he's your boss - you need
to get him to speak to Moe, the CFO and get Moe to give my boss, Curley,
some budget to buy me some bigger disks. HAND.
Has anyone else been disapointed by the plot summary of _Bulletproof
Monk_?
Dave Aronson
A> Hey, I didn't say I'd ever seen a nozzle actually rotated upwards, or
A> anyone using it to dry their face.
In college, I sometimes used one (in the dorm) to dry my hair.